baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I keep seeing this today... you realise that the people who are in control, or at least are picking those in control have totally fucking lost it. Brexit has broken their tiny minds.
It's pretty scary that an illegitimate and insane vote to leave the EU which no longer commands a majority is being forced through by an insane party which also no longer commands a majority. Both of these things are in such a precarious position that the vested interests clinging on to power won't go to the country and ask if they still want them (and thus gain the mandate and majority they need to do it properly) - cos they know that it doesn't. The upshot, we are led by people we don't like into doing something we don't want and that everyone who knows anything about it says will be a disaster.

which seems quintessentially British, possibly the most British thing that has ever happened. We're doing it whether anyone likes it or not - because we said we would.

there's also some link to the puritanism thread here. excess and denial both in crazed full effect, moderate sane pleasure/considerations of the 'good life' absolutely nowhere to be seen.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
which seems quintessentially British, possibly the most British thing that has ever happened. We're doing it whether anyone likes it or not - because we said we would.
there's also some link to the puritanism thread here. excess and denial both in crazed full effect, moderate sane pleasure/considerations of the 'good life' absolutely nowhere to be seen.
I get the link to puritanism sure - as has often been said, it's no longer being held up as something good, it's not even something that will be good in the long run but will bring short term pain. It's pure pain and punishment and these are the only things about it and so presumably they must be the good things about it. It's just self-flagellation.
I dunno if it's the most British thing ever though. I dunno if it's a particularly British thing (on an individual level or as a nation) though is it to stick to something through thick and thin... I mean, I don't know if British are better or worse than that, it's just that personally it's not something that I think of as a British trait particularly.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
i think there's this weird pragmatist ideology in Britain around 'fairness' and 'doing what you said you'd do', hollowed out of any ethical content whatsoever and almost only ever applied in inappropriate situations where ethical ruin or unhappiness will follow.
 

version

Well-known member
They really are bastards, y'know.

New trade minister Liz Truss had private talks in US with libertarian groups - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/04/liz-truss-trade-deal-food-safety-deregulation

The cabinet minister in charge of negotiating a new US trade deal met with a series of rightwing American thinktanks to discuss deregulation and the benefits of “Reaganomics”, new documents have revealed.

Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, had a number of meetings with libertarian groups that have championed parts of Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda and tax cuts.

New details of her three-day visit to Washington last September have been uncovered by Greenpeace’s investigative journalism team, Unearthed. Truss met senior representatives from the Heritage Foundation, a thinktank committed to shrinking the state and cutting environmental regulation, to discuss “regulatory reform”. Also at the meeting was the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Both groups were part of the “shadow trade talks” project, designed to advocate a wide-ranging US trade deal allowing the import of American goods currently banned in Britain.

One briefing note reveals that Truss was keen to hear “what we can learn from ‘Reaganomics’ on things like regulation and red tape”. Truss also planned to tell the Heritage Foundation that she is “committed to”, and “personally interested in”, exploring similar reforms in the UK.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Holy fuck. Look away now if you don't want to be massively (more) depressed and (more) worried.

voting.JPG
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
If I were to predict, I'd predict a Tory victory, just not on those figures. Have to see what 6 weeks of campaigning does but I can't see a Labour victory right now. Very hard to tell.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
A very narrow and dim ray of sunshine recently was Corbyn saying he might be prepared for someone else to step forward as leader of a caretaker government to avoid a NDB: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-caretaker-pm-stop-no-deal-brexit-a9064616.html

But by Christ, it's getting awfully tight for time.

I don't understand why anyone would want an election before November. If Labour were to somehow get in over the next couple of months (vanishingly unlikely in itself), the usual suspects will be able to pin the fallout on Labour.
 
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comelately

Wild Horses
The point was raised in the Labour Conference thread about the aim/aspiration of the Torys to have a minimum wage of £10.50ph for everyone over 21+. Now this isn't a very hard commitment; they essentially mean by the end of the next Pariiament but it's still very much a line in the sand - there remains many in the party that consider minimum wages to be essentially *evil*, and indeed there are many Ayn Rand fans in the Cabinet.

The Torys are shifting to a non-liberal, some might say post-liberal, stance. The nation of the UK is the individual, the John Galt, the Howard Roark. The EU is the antagonist with its protectionist single market and its wish to impose level playing field rules - the UK can only refuse to go along with its machinations; it can do no other. Britannia will be unchained.

If it takes a few fig-leaf policies to build a coalition of support, then it's a small price to pay. Most of the minimum wage increase can be soaked up by the rentier class anyway.

I still think there's a tendency to overplay the degree to which chasing Brexit Party supporters may alienate everybody else, but it would be silly to think it can't work.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
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version

Well-known member
Apparently Boris and Javid have ordered budget cuts of at least 5%. So much for austerity being over...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Apparently Boris and Javid have ordered budget cuts of at least 5%. So much for austerity being over...

I was just reading about this. Anyone who voted Tory and is shocked or disappointed by this is going to be gutted when they find out that Santa Claus was actually their parents
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Still needs to be repeatedly made clear... there are plenty of people who didn't expect this, haven't read it today, and are at home celebrating Britain's sailing away from Europe and thinking thank fuck Corbyn didn't win and make us all speak Russian.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
There's something particularly sick about this development, in that (if I've understood correctly) it not only robs from vulnerable people to pay for the funding of the NHS and lessening regional inequality (well allegedly, let's see where the money actually goes), but leaves it up to individual government ministers/psychos to handpick the programmes that are 'not worthy'.
 

version

Well-known member
There's this too:

Tory MP Caroline Nokes, who voted against same-sex marriage, has been elected to oversee parliament’s scrutiny of LGBT+ and equalities issues.
 
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